Hoping to take advantage of the uncertain equity markets, the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index Group has launched a new bundle of three of its investable hedge fund indices.

The Market Defender Basket includes CS/Tremont’s equity market-neutral, convertible arbitrage and multi-strategy Sector Invest indices. The basket—which would have been up roughly 0.13% in June and 1.08% in May, based on historical data—is available on the firm’s Web site.

“The generally market neutral trading strategies comprising the Markets Defender Basket were selected to take advantage of a less bullish or outright bearish investment environment for equities,” said Credit Suisse Index Co. President Oliver Schupp. “Rising inflation, consumer leverage and weakness in global housing markets are among the key risks for global equities going forward. Recent events in credit markets are adding to investor caution, and help position the Markets Defender Basket as a useful metric for hedge fund investments, which aim to provide capital preservation, stable absolute returns and low volatility in a market environment of general negative sentiment.”

The Market Defender Basket is actually CS/Tremont’s second such product: It launched the Global Growth Opportunities Basket, a bundle of directionally-oriented index products now also available online, two years ago.

From the current issue of

Forecasting markets has always been fraught with danger for analysts and traders alike. MODERN TRADER has dedicated issues detailing the pitfalls of following so-called markets gurus. Too often these market experts are allowed to flaunt their winning forecasts and let their losers fade into the background.